Automated Road Building

[Xheotris]

So, I am just getting back into FTB after being away for an update or two, and I'm loving the changes. However, there is one problem that I'm not sure how to solve: Roads.

Back in the heady days of RedPower, I would build a behemoth 3x3x15 frame-bore with built in solar panels, item sorting, remote activation & clocking, chunk loader, &c. I would feed the beast* with factory-made stone bricks or MFR roads via enderchest, making its range virtually unlimited, barring chunk errors. With one of these monsters set to each point of the compass, and then unleashed, I could conquer the world at my leisure, and ensure that I always knew how to get back home in the quickest way possible.

Now, before you say "turtles!" or "steve's carts!" let me explain why that's not quite an optimal solution. In both cases, it's a matter of range. Neither one can be automated, to my knowledge, to travel the surface in only one direction, without returning for resupply. This means that the time to build each stretch of road will increase exponentially over a long period of time. What I want is a way, no matter how hideously complicated, to send a one-way train/machine/missile to the end of the earth that leaves nothing but a trail of destruction and flat, tidy paving in its wake.

Even if you aren't sure of exact details on how to do this, any partial ideas are quite welcome.

*title drop!

 

[kaovalin]

Turtles can be automated by putting an enderchest inside them for storage/power and using some kind of storage management to maintain a set of blocks in the enderchest available to the turtle. Both AE and Logistics pipes can manage this remotely while the turtle just goes about his business both creating tunnels and building roads. Turtles can be used this way in many tunneling and tree farming applications. Chunk loading can be initiated by having a chunkloading turtle companion.

Alternately if you have the ability to add mods yourself, there is always redstone in motion, the redpower frames replacement (but better). I dont think that dev gives permission to use in FTB packs however.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Mods in combination: MFFS with it's force manipulators, and Thermal Expansions Autonomous activators and Terrain Smashers. Neither the AA's, nor the TS's require power, while the Force Manipulators do, but can run off of redstone flux. MFFS moves the Terrain Smashers which feed stone and dirt into Ender Chests, and the AA's, which are fed Stone Bricks from another Ender Chest. (Or the same set up to maintain bricks and extract everything else with LP.)

I don't know if MFFS can move Tesseracts, but a turtle can be included to pick up/replace the tesseract every set number of moves, to recharge the system. If the turtle is given control of the system, it could even only move the system when the Tesseract is stored and the system has enough power.

An alternative option is a multi-turtle system. So instead of one turtle, you have 5, four of them being mining/construction turtles, and one of them being a control turtle, which maintains chunk loading and keeps them going. Have that one turtle be the one that starts up and kicks the others into motion when the world unloads.

 

[Dark0_0firE]

Hrm... first things that spring to mind, other than Steve's Carts or turtles, would be a Railcraft tunnel bore. Combine that with a track layer and world anchor cart. And personall I think I would prefer rails to roads.

 

[kaovalin]

Hrm... first things that spring to mind, other than Steve's Carts or turtles, would be a Railcraft tunnel bore. Combine that with a track layer and world anchor cart. And personall I think I would prefer rails to roads.

Except for the crafting of said rails

 

[KingTriaxx]

Not too bad, since you can automate the production of rails. Steve's Cart Tree Farm for wood and charcoal, charcoal to fuel the Carts and produce Creosote Oil, Creosote goes into a forestry carpenter. Wood gets saw milled, producing planks and saw dust for more charcoal, as well as bridge building material and the slabs needed to create the ties. Iron is the hard one, but the cart should be returning that, or failing that, tin and copper to make bronze for rails. Cyclic assemblers or Auto-workbenches to make slabs and railbeds, and one to make the rails themselves.

That sounds like an incredibly fun project now that you mention it. I finally have something to do with my Direwolf 20 world. Thanks for the idea.

 

[kaovalin]

Not too bad, since you can automate the production of rails. Steve's Cart Tree Farm for wood and charcoal, charcoal to fuel the Carts and produce Creosote Oil, Creosote goes into a forestry carpenter. Wood gets saw milled, producing planks and saw dust for more charcoal, as well as bridge building material and the slabs needed to create the ties. Iron is the hard one, but the cart should be returning that, or failing that, tin and copper to make bronze for rails. Cyclic assemblers or Auto-workbenches to make slabs and railbeds, and one to make the rails themselves.

That sounds like an incredibly fun project now that you mention it. I finally have something to do with my Direwolf 20 world. Thanks for the idea.

Rails are going to be a big part of my new DW20 world as well. I guess its just cause I've never had to craft rails said ways that makes it seem like more work. Can't be worse than automating the creation and supply of 4 GT fusion reactors in 1.4.7 right?

 

[KingTriaxx]

Exactly. Though I'm thinking I'm going to add Engineer's Toolbox to my world. Just because I like the ability to build custom multiblocks with it.

 

[TangentialThreat]

I've gotten MFFS tunnel-borers to work.

Making things fly with MFFS is actually pretty easy, but the disintegration module is an unreasonably power-hungry beast if ramped up to speeds that would let it move through obstacles. ME transition planes and Arcane Bores were better, with the bore requiring breaks to dig and then recharge but looking really cool and the ME system needing two controllers connected by a bridge for no apparent reason.

 

[kaovalin]

I've gotten MFFS tunnel-borers to work.

Making things fly with MFFS is actually pretty easy, but the disintegration module is an unreasonably power-hungry beast if ramped up to speeds that would let it move through obstacles. ME transition planes and Arcane Bores were better, with the bore requiring breaks to dig and then recharge but looking really cool and the ME system needing two controllers connected by a bridge for no apparent reason.

How easy would you say that was to setup? I was considering making a MFFS tunnel bore at some point.

 

[GreatOrator]

I have actually created a very compact MFFS Calclavia mining bore that could be reconditioned to do roads. The overall build is two blocks thick and 4 blocks wide/long. (Keep in mind this in a 1.6 modpack that has ComputerCraft/Thermal Expansion/Project:Red as well as MFFS)

(if looking from front)
First Row: manipulator, capacitor, projector, chunk loader
Second Row: Adv Computer, deriver, tesseract, deriver
Third Row: Manipulator, tesseract, deriver, stone block
Fourth Row: stone block, deriver, stone block, chunk loader

On the top level you use bundled cable to wire projector and manipulators to the adv computer and then redstone energy conduit to wire as many derivers together with the tesseracts. The front tesseract is set to send items and receive energy, the second tesseract only energy.

Any empty spaces on top you place a stone block (or any block for that matter.

If anyone is interested in the full detailed setup I could find a way to do a tutorial on it. Either way, using a bit of programming you could easily convert this rig into a road creating machine rather than mining.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Yeah, I'd like to see that. Or at minimum some pictures.

 

[GreatOrator]

So I created an album to show and explain the setup I have. I tried to be as detailed as I could and hopefully soon I can create a tutorial video for it.

Had to make a slight change (from my initial description but not in how I originally made the machine regarding project:red as the original machine actually used rednet and bundled cable for P:R apparently does not like the tops of calclavia machines).

I also found a way to compact it even more so it is 2x4x3 so only 24 blocks total size.

EDIT: The current setup can mine a single chunk width to bedrock in less than 30 seconds, a full chunk can be mined out this way in just a few minutes. Best used in a mystcraft age.

http://imgur.com/a/DNhoy#0

 

[KingTriaxx]

Very cool. Are two chunk loaders necessary? Or do they shut down when disengaged.

 

[Redius]

Very cool. Are two chunk loaders necessary? Or do they shut down when disengaged.

I'd assume so, to ensure that the entire contraption is chunkloaded, even when the halves of the vehicle are in different chunks (i.e. crossing chunk boundaries).

 

[KingTriaxx]

Ah. Makes sense.

 

[GreatOrator]

Yes, two are necessary so that as one half moves it stays in a loaded chunk. You can also use railcraft anchors too if you don't have chunkloaders installed. Glad you guys like it!

 

[kaovalin]

Why not use a platform high in a sky and have an array of buildcraft mining wells? Then you get stuff from every Y level along a single axis with a width of the platform its running on.

 

[GreatOrator]

Mining wells actually are pretty slow overall compared to the machine i posted and it does mine all the way to bedrock if the right setup is configured and in less than half the time mining wells would work. but the debate here was not about mining options but road building options and the machine I built was put up as an example that could be modified for his purpose.